LONG ENOUGH AT THIS MOUNTAIN By Juliet Gosling-Brown
Kirstenbosch Gardens, South Africa Photo: Juliet Gosling-Brown
I travel overseas and experience the Anglican Church in another culture. I attended a retreat at Hilfield Friary, a Franciscan Community in Dorset, to explore this idea further. I was guided by various clergy, including a retired Franciscan Brother who suggested I apply to travel with USPG, as he had previously done. I applied to the Experience Exchange Programme (EEP), attended a USPG Discernment Weekend, and I was accepted. This is where my journey with USPG began. I remember praying to God, saying ‘I will do anything you want me to do’. This may have been a risky thing to say but I finished the weekend filled with joy. After all of this, the writing was on the wall: I needed to travel overseas with USPG. In November 2005, I spent ten days in Birmingham, training with 18 other participants on the EEP. In December 2005, I left my fundraising job at Marie Curie Cancer Care. I achieved my fundraising target of £5,000 for the placement within a week, which I took as another sign of God’s plan.
Having sat on the fence about religion until my mid-thirties, I came to faith in 1996. This was the result of curiosity, a fear of death and my godmother persuading me to enrol in an Alpha Course at Holy Trinity Brompton Church, London. In 2003, my vicar in Wandsworth put me in touch with a Vocations Chaplain who suggested
I travelled to Cape Town, South Africa in January 2006 for a six-month placement at St Mark’s Anglican Church in District Six, an area of the city notorious for its apartheid history. It felt like God had put everything in place for the journey ahead. I met people in unexpected places, such as funerals and New Year’s Eve parties, who gave me contacts to aid my role as Fundraiser for St Mark’s Church. My pastorate
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